Governing Time

Notwithstanding the fact that Republicans once again won all the major statewide elections in November, 2015 will be marked by major transitions in Texas politics and public life. We’re inaugurating a new governor next week, for the first time in 14 years, and a new lieutenant governor, for the first time in twelve. We know who the new leaders will be, at least–Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick, respectively– if not how they will compare to their predecessors, Rick Perry and David Dewhurst. The same won’t be true in March, when Richard Fisher retires as president of the Dallas Fed after nearly a decade in that role, and when my great colleague and friend Paul Burka retires after forty years of covering politics for Texas Monthly.

That sense of transition was inescapable today. The first day of the 84th Legislature, like the first days of all regular sessions, included its fair share of photo shoots and ceremonial asides. But the Texas Senate’s business included a resolution honoring Dewhurst, gaveling in for the last time. And in the House, which held its first contested race for Speaker in forty years, a number of representatives warned that the state itself may be at a critical moment.

“The Texas Miracle is anything but a miracle,” said Ken Sheets, a Republican representative from Dallas. “It is a product of governing,” according to conservative principles. And those principles matter more than ever, he added, at a time when the state has to deal with a growing population, a growing economy, and increasing global competition. Four Price, a Republican from Amarillo, argued that Texas’s success matters across the country: “We remain the economic engine on which so many others rely.” Matt Krause, a Republican from Fort Worth, concurred. “The eyes of America are on us,” he said. “Who is going to captain this venerated vessel?” Rene Oliveira, a Democrat from Brownsville, offered a maritime analogy of his own: “Now more than ever, we need a seasoned skipper at the helm.”

Oliveira, like Price and Sheets, was speaking in favor of Joe Straus, the incumbent speaker, as seasoned skipper. Most of their colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, agreed: when the time came to vote the board lit up with 127 red votes for Straus, compared to 19 for Scott Turner, the Tea Party-type challenger. In fairness, Turner won more votes than most watchers would have guessed as recently as yesterday. Still, Straus’s re-election was a foregone conclusion, and this whole “speaker’s race” served to reinforce his standing rather than chip away at it. Based on the results the Tea Party, or whatever we’re calling it these days, has even fewer votes in the House than the Democrats do.

More significantly, perhaps, most of the various interest groups and individuals opposing Straus came out of the debate looking vapid. It was possible to make a substantive case for Turner. The evidence was that one supporter did so. In seconding the nomination, Krause explicitly addressed qualms about Turner’s experience and policy knowledge that had been raised by Giovanni Capriglione, the Tea Party representative who publicly broke with his cohort over the speaker question in November. He made a case for Turner rather than simply against Straus.

The rest of the insurrectionists didn’t. Bryan Hughes, reflecting on the origins of the job, described the medieval context which led the House of Commons to appoint a representative to speak to the king: “Seven of these men actually did lose their heads, because the king didn’t like what they said.” Jeff Leach argued that based on the November elections, it’s apparent that Texans want conservative leadership, not centrists. That was a fair observation, but not necessarily a relevant one, given the state constitution’s provision that the Speaker of the House be elected by the members of the Texas House. Neither line of argument, meanwhile, was about Turner specifically, and after the vote, it was impossible to say what the animating ideal had been: personal antipathy to Straus? Or a general ethos of anti-incumbency? The latter, at least, has an element of adventure and spontaneity. But after all the turnover of the 2014 elections, the Lege is apparently looking for a little more stability.

(AP | Eric Gay)

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Comments

WUSRPH

It was reassuring to see that all but 19 Republican members of the House were strong enough to stand up to the pressure brought upon them by the Michael Q. Sullivans and the more radical elements of the Tea Party when it came time to elect a speaker. However, we still have to see how many of them will be able to overcome their fears of the daily “good and bad vote” sheets MQS will be issuing as a threat to shape how they vote on important issues. I do not expect a conservative Republican to vote like most Democratic members, but there were occasions last session—such as on the budget and the water plan—where fear of MQS led some members to cast votes against their fellow conservatives and against the best interests of Texas and their own constituents. Today’s vote showed those forces to be weaker than some had feared, but only time will tell whether their total failure to achieve any progress in the replacing a Speaker with their pawn will have a long-term effect on their power.

P.S. Krause may have “made a case” that Scott Turner is not as nebulous and insignificant of a figure as some would have it, but he did not “make a case” for Turner’s ability to or even interest in governing—in running the state and meeting its needs. One must hope that, until the Tea Party becomes something more than a negative force, it will not be able to attract 76 votes in the House.

Hey WUSRPH, what’s your thoughts on what Perry’s official gubernatorial portrait will look like once it’s unveiled in a few weeks ? Do you think he’ll have those glasses on or not ?
Bill Clements (R)’s 2nd portrait had him wearing glasses.

Texas Publius

16 of the 19 knuckleheads were from the Metroplex/Northeast Texas.

Only 1 of the 19 was from Dan Patrick’s listening area.

Trevor4

did anyone understand Scott Turner’s personal privilege speech? what was he talking about?

It certainly did not hurt ken Paxton. In fact I think it launched him to where he is now.

WUSRPH

He was honing his stump speech for use in his race for the US Congress when Sam Johnson retires in a year or two. That is what he’s been doing for the past two years.

Texas Publius

17 of the 19 sillies were from the Metroplex or from the Pine Curtain. Not the sharpest tools in the shed.

roadgeek

Instead of being so dismissive, why not try to understand why these “sillies” vote the way they do? If you got to know them, you’d probably find that some of these folks are fine people, who truly believe they are doing the right thing. That their perception of the right thing differs from your perception doesn’t necessarily make them wrong.

They might not be right, but if all you do is dismiss them as stupid (“..not the sharpest tools…”), you’ll never find common ground with a great many of the Texans they represent. And if the Democrats ever expect to govern Texas again, they’ll need to find that common ground.

The TX Dems will need to run for Big-City Mayors including suburban mayoralties.

MSM

I agree with you roadgeek. All I see from a lot of the local Texas newspapers like that Lubbock ones are big rants about how stupid Texans are. It’s like babies pouting and stamping their feet because they didn’t get their way.

How on Earth do democrats expect to win when they write stuff like that? When you make it clear how much you hate people whose votes you need, don’t be surprised they vote against you.

Besides, the biggest power in any system is status quo. Once a status quo gets established it’s very hard to alter. The California Democrats are the status quo in their state. Texas republicans are the status quo in Texas. It’s really hard to alter a system once cemented unless you get a very good reason for others to want to upend it.

Texas Publius

Why not be dismissive? I didn’t say these folks aren’t fine people. But if they articulated even one reason why the Republican House plane should be flown by a different pilot, I’m all ears as to what those reasons are. They mentioned not a single one Tuesday. Especially when they’re publicly asking their colleagues to replace an experienced pilot with one who’s never obtained his pilot license, let alone actually flown a plane. So, yeah, dismissive is very much in order.

donuthin2

Does anyone know how Molly White voted. She sounds way right in her rhetoric, but hopefully has some judgement. This vote will be the first indication.

WUSRPH

She voted for Turner.

donuthin2

Was afraid so. We will be without effective representation again in Bell County. Unfortunate but it is what happens when intelligent people or not engaged.

donuthin2

Her agenda is to do away with daylight savings time and a right to carry. Wow, she will make Ralph look smart and statesman like.

WUSRPH

For some reason the issue of getting Texas out of daylight savings has arisen in this session…..I wonder why…..it could be an offshoot of the “we hate anything that has to do with the federal government” movement expressed in the various nullification proposals…..but there could conceivably be another reason, I guess.

The last legislator I can remember to make a run at getting Texas out of daylight savings time was State Rep. Hilary Doran of Del Rio. That was back in 1973 He wore two watches….one, he said, was set to “God’s time” (actually railroad time) and the other to “Government time”….Hilary was primarily fighting on behalf of the Drive-in movie people (remember them) who were virtually destroyed by it……Kids with curfews could not go to the movies if the sun did not go down until almost the time they had to be home and families, who packed the kids in cars, did not want to be out until all hours just to see a cheap movie.

Speaking of nullification, we are up to at least 9 proposals …with filing still going one. The weirdest two in my opinion are HB 98 by Flynn and HB 623 by Bell.

Flynn’s diatribe would create a joint legislative committee on nullification made up of the Lt. governor, the speaker and 6 reps. and 6 senators. It would have the power to review any action by the federal government (apparently even by federal courts) and decide whether to nullify it so that it has no effect in Texas. Anything the panel “nullified” would stay that way unless the Legislature voted not to let the committee’s action stand.

Bell’s clearly unconstitutional proposal would bar any official in Texas from issuing a license for or officiating in a marriage between two people of the same sex and would make it a crime to recognize any marriage license or marriage of such people from somewhere else.

The others range from making it a crime for any official of the state or local govts to enforce federal gun laws (including specified laws that do not now exist and probably never will) to general declarations of State Sovereignty that tell the Feds to behave.

Erica, do you see Perry’s gubernatorial portrait with him wearing the trademark glasses?

A.) YES
B.) NO

WUSRPH

Did you notice in the proposed new House Rules that the House continues to move toward making everything electronic and doing away with paper copies? It even is going to have
bills filed with the chief clerk for introduction in an electronic format. The Senate is still holding out for paper…as would I, being an old foggy. I am certain they have built-in all kinds of protections, but I sure do not like thinking about the possibility that some computer knowledgeable Tea Partier (and there may be one of them) figures out how to hack the system and starts writing his own version of the bills.

MSM

Tea Party doesn’t tend to be strong with the hacktivists. Most hackers tend to lean left.

The more likely scenario is that some hackers will get it in and add “marriage equality” language and “free college for all”.

Troof

No, in general the middle aged and senior citizens are not usually hackers nor very tech saavy. Younger people tend to be the tech saavy ones that would have the skill to do such a thing. Probably pretty unlikely to happen though. The more likely scenario though is that legislation like you’re talking about will start passing on its own through the actual legislative process. Today’s young people will replace today’s old people.

There’s a lot of room for reasonable and intelligent debate on higher ed. How much it should cost, what a degree should consist of, etc.. Marriage equality, however, is a losing battle. Those who oppose it will eventually find themselves on the wrong side of history. It’ll be today’s version of having a racist grandad…. The thing about it is it virtually does nobody any harm at all to allow two consenting adults to marry. Banning it is as big government as banning law abiding adults from buying certain types of gun. Both make certain folks uncomfortable. That doesn’t mean it’s okay to ban it though. Get big government out of our lives, right??

Jed

do you worry about election results for the same reason?

WUSRPH

Funny you should ask. I conducted a study for the Leg. back in 1976 about problems with the old punch card voting system. Things have been improved since then….but what is it that they say about the price of liberty?

So much for the conservative argument that government operates best at the local level, when it’s closest to the citizens themselves.

WUSRPH

As usual someone is spouting the direct Empower line in commenting on the House rules debate yesterday. There was no great victory for the 19….There was more of a fight over whether to allow smoking in their offices than over anything his little group offered. but when you are getting beat so badly so often, you have to claim minor (acceptable to the majority) amendments as GREAT VICTORIES. I suspect we will see a lot of these victories no one else can see before the session ends.

What makes the situation even more humorous is that while Empower is calling those Republican members who voted for Speaker Straus as being virtually traitors to the cause, Texas Insider, another conservative blog, is saying that Straus was re-elected “with support of Tea Party-backed members”……I guess your viewpoint depends on whether you are being financed by a particular Midland oilman or not.

Big Jolly Conservative Politics in Texas, another conservative blog site, took a similar approach to that of Texas Insider. It had special fun with State Rep. Stickland, one of the leaders of the so-called Rules Fight, who, among other things, had to admit that, while he was complaining that there was not enough time to study the new rules, he had failed to attend the session at which members were fully briefed on what was proposed.

P.S. To be fair, I should not that Empower’s heroes were able to get 24 votes on one of their proposals….but, similarly, they only got 13 on another—which is 6 less than the number who voted for Turner.

The revelation that one effect of Gov. Perry’s veto of funding for the Travis County District Attorney’s Public Integrity Unit was to kill an investigation of some “emergency” contracts by the Dept. of Public Safety raises another version of the late U.S. Senator Howard Baker’s famous question about President Nixon’s knowledge of what became the “Watergate Scandal”:

“What did the Governor know and when did he know it?

The contracts in question were with an out-of-state firm which was signed on an “emergency basis” without public notice or bidding to “develop strategies” for Perry’s border security campaign. The original contract was for several hundreds of thousands of dollars but it was expanded later thru a series of additional contracts to more than $20 million—again without bidding. The first “emergency” contract was made under a law designed for smaller purchases of mostly daily-need office goods and the like. Larger contracts (such as this one became) are usually supposed to be subject to public notice and bidding. (A public investigation is now under way of the use by the State Health & Human Services Commission of the same method to enter into a low cost contract that was also later expanded into a multi-million deal without notice or bidding.)

The original contract was signed on “an emergency” basis altho the only apparent emergency was that it came in the midst of Perry’s re-election campaign in 2010 during which he was making “border security” a major issue.

It is clear that Perry’s office had to know about the original contract. What is at question did it know (and intend) at the time that it be expanded over time to way beyond the dollar limits on such contracts—-i.e.—was it signed as part of a deliberate effort to sidestep the
law?

If the governor or his office was aware of the contract and/or any plan to expand its size later, the most important question then becomes:

“What (or did) the Governor (or his staff) know about the investigation of the DPS contract and when did they know that it was being investigated?”

That is, did he/they know at the time of the veto in 2013 of the funding for the PIU and, if they did, was that knowledge a factor in their decision to veto the funding? (Perry has always claimed that he vetoed the funding solely because he had lost confidence in the
Travis County DA after she was arrested for DWI.)

And, third, was the grand jury that indicted Perry made aware of the governor’s knowledge of the investigation of the DPS contract and, if so, how did it find out? The answer to this question might explain the governor’s legally unusual and strong desire to see a transcript of the testimony before the grand jury including that by members of his staff. He may be both trying to find out what the grand jury knew and whether it found out from one of his aides.

To be fair to Perry….even if he knew about the investigation at the time of the veto it can be argued that there was no way that he could be certain that the veto would kill the investigation. Travis County later came up with enough money to keep the office open and it could have picked up the investigation after that—in fact, if the PIU thought the veto was aimed at stopping the investigation it can be argued that it would have even more reason to investigate the DPS deal.

Poor dems they are still mad at Guv Perry because he stopped drinking the kool aide and switched parties.

How about that Feinstein, hubby gets $1 billion in commission for selling 56 post office buildings and renting more luxurious office space. Who said dems don’t know how to make money> Its called fleecing the tax payers.

Books, I’m not expecting Feinstein to run again in 2018. The younger politicos want her GONE !

John Bernard Books

WASSUP? any idea dems haven’t won a statewide race in OVER 20 years?

WUSRPH

Many. Some of which I have expressed in prior comments, but there is no time or space here.

John Bernard Books

again you missed my point…..”OVER 20 years.”

WUSRPH

Actually, it is for the same reason why the GOP has gotten less of the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 presidential elections–not enough people voted for them.

John Bernard Books

Erica here’s what a real story looks like, “A new report on the financial malfeasance at the University of Texas – released late on Friday afternoon before a long weekend – offers harsh criticism of a payola scandal begun when UT President Bill Powers was head of the law school. Without naming him, the report also serves to vindicate the investigation started by UT Regent Wallace Hall that House Speaker Joe Straus and his cronies have tried to silence.”